I haven’t been gifted a Knut puzzle to blog for ages, and was delighted to find this one in my in-tray. A delight from start to finish, with such a wide range of references that I spent more time than I should have down rabbit holes on t’internet.
It contains a theme of STEVEN SPIELBERG and his films: there’s DUEL, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, SCHINDLER’S LIST and (indirectly) ET. I can’t find any special anniversary today, but I haven’t looked that hard. Perhaps Knut is just a fan.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Still red, in bits, suppressing onset of sobbing following singular feature film
SCHINDLER’S LIST
A charade of S for ‘singular’, CHIN for ‘feature’ and S for the initial letter of ‘sobbing’ in (STILL RED)* The anagrind is ‘in bits’; the insertion indicator is ‘suppressing’; and the clue as a whole is suggestive of the likely reaction to Spielberg’s moving account of events in World War II.
9 Doctor with large ring piercing, nice on the ear
MELODIC
An insertion of L and O in MEDIC. The insertion indicator is ‘piercing’.
10 Last carriage to the Place de la Bastille … tu, Monsieur Jacques?
TUMBREL
A charade of TU, M and [Jacques]BREL. A TUMBREL is an open cart which was used to convey condemned prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution, hence the inclusion of ‘last’ and the allusion to the Bastille. Jacques BREL is the renowned francophone Belgian singer, completing the French connection.
11 Duel was his first serious shooting
STEVEN SPIELBERG
A cd. Duel (1971) was SPIELBERG’s first major film – it was made for television but brought his directing talents to a wider audience.
12 Nibble a hickory nut when cycling
CANAPÉ
The pecan is a species of hickory, so Knut is inviting you to ‘cycle’ A PECAN to give you CANAPÉ, which in our house is a very posh ‘nibble’. It’s also the French word for ‘settee’, because the chef who invented them produced the first varieties in the shape of a couch.
14 Give Cuban heels to husband, 18, dropping a tab
HEIGHTEN
A charade of H and EIGHTE[E]N. The ‘tab’ would be of the ecstasy variety – hence the missing ‘E’.
16 Morning Boris! Fancy a bit of something tasty?
AMBROSIA
I really must take issue with the setter for introducing Alexander again – we are trying to pretend that he has gone away, don’t you know? A charade of AM, (BORIS)* and A. The food and drink of the gods, of course, but it’s also used for anything particularly mouth-watering.
18 Returning EU’s rubbish boring artwork
STATUE
An insertion of TAT in EUS. The insertion indicator is ‘boring’.
21/26 Film intimate moments with Thora?
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
I will confess that when I saw ‘Thora’ then the actress Thora Hird came to mind, but then I’m of a certain age; and I needed some crossers before I could see the solution. You need to read THIRD as T. HIRD. And the Spielberg theme would surely have pointed you in the right direction anyway.
24 I’m on drugs, like nitrous oxide
AMUSING
Nitrous oxide is also known as laughing gas, so it’s AM USING.
25 My stag involved necking last of poteen tumbler
GYMNAST
An insertion of N for the last letter of ‘poteen’ in (MY STAG)* The anagrind is ‘involved’ and the insertion indicator is ‘necking’.
Down
1 Food parcel American dropped off somewhere in the Aegean
SAMOS
SAMOS[A]
2 Being in search of a model, who’ll Abel find to get fully stripped?
HOLBEIN
The middle letters of wHOLl aBEl fINd gives you the 16th century portraitist.
3 Dig garden, initially with nothing on?
NUDGE
An insertion of G for the initial letter of ‘garden’ in NUDE. If G is in the NUDE it’s got nothing on …
4 Swore out loud after getting report of low flying pest
LOCUST
A charade of two homophones: of LOW and of CUSSED. The two homophone indicators are ‘out loud’ and ‘report of’.
5 Poor Eritrean servant
RETAINER
(ERITREAN)*
6 Chaplin film in which Harry shone?
LIMELIGHT
We are certainly having some cultural references this morning. The reference is to Harry LIME, the character in the 1949 film The Third Man based on the novella by Graham Greene.
7 Excess water surging up the beach regularly wiping out Elliott
SURFEIT
A charade of SURF and the first, third and fifth fourth and seventh letters of EllIotT.
8 Stylish quality of label e.g. Ancelotti’s wearing
ELEGANCE
Hidden in labEL EG ANCElotti. Carlo Ancelotti is a footie manager, since you ask.
12 This should keep Barbie going for a while!
CHARCOAL
A cd, because KEN doesn’t fit.
13 Self-important old Tories getting motion in Houses of Parliament overturned
POOTERISH
An insertion of O and (TORIES)* in HP reversed. The anagrind is ‘getting motion’ and the insertion indicator is ‘in’. Great surface. The adjective has come into English from Charles Pooter, the central character of the 1892 comic novel, The Diary of a Nobody.
15 Knut’s up, regularly dancing that late
MIDNIGHT
A charade of I’M reversed and the odd letters of DaNcInG tHaT. Is the surface a case of art imitating life? Only the setter knows.
17 Book review: “Woeful, it’s a really hard read“
BEOWULF
A charade of B and (WOEFUL)* for the epic Anglo-Saxon poem. It would be ‘hard’ for most folk because it’s written in Old English:
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum …
Now, we Spear-Danes in days gone by …
19 Wise guys turning Italy match before half time
THE MAGI
A reversal of I, GAME and HT.
20 Indian lad cut top off fruit
MOWGLI
A charade of MOW and [U]GLI with more literary references: this time the feral boy and protagonist from Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
22 Called chap about East Germany
NAMED
A charade of MAN reversed, E and D for Deutschland (as seen on international car plates)
23 Had more than enough blue flipping movie content!
SATED
An insertion of ET reversed in SAD. The insertion indicator is ‘content’ and it’s another nod to Spielberg’s film output.
Many thanks to Knut for the start to the Indy week.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
His first SS
First Serious Shooting SS
Does it work?
Probably I am stretching it.
Didn’t understand the Ken bit (CHARCOAL).
I thought it was something to do with a barbecue
(Is Barbie slang for barbecue?)
Good fun. Pierre, your counting needs some improvement in 7d.
Yes, KVa @2, ‘barbie’ is (originally Australian) slang for “barbecue”. I know zilch about such things (Pierre is clearly much more knowledgeable), but I’m pretty sure that Ken was Barbie’s boyfriend and male doll counterpart. I now see there’s a Wikipedia page about him if you’re interested.
I really liked this, with the theme the icing on the cake. Favourite bits were the reminder of DUEL (a great film) and the Harry LIME reference for LIMELIGHT.
A big thanks to Knut and Pierre
Thanks, WordPlodder@4
I was just thinking it was a cryptic definition indicating that charcoal would keep a barbecue going for a while.
Pierre or someone has to explain how Ken is related to charcoal (his connection with Barbie is clear). I am just trying to understand how it works.
Excellent crossword and blog. Delightful. I liked the variety of clue types Knut used and he is expert in all of them. Top picks for me are HEIGHTEN and MIDNIGHT. The reference to Ken is a joke, right? I’m sure he’d keep the barbie going too if he had 8 letters. I needed some help with the parsing for 1a. Many thanks.
Thanks Sofamore@6
I missed the joke.
Not my favourite Knut puzzle only because the theme is somewhat unfamiliar to me. But as ever with this setter quite a few smiles sprinkled throughout the grid, foremost of which for me were AMBROSIA, CHARCOAL (brilliant misdirection) NUDGE and MIDNIGHT.
Many thanks to Knut, I think he’s due to make an appearance elsewhere this week so look forward to that, and to Pierre.
Mr CS and I are supposed to be going out but when I saw there was a Knut puzzle to solve, I told him he’d have to wait
What a treat – presumably specially themed to coincide with last night’s Oscars ceremony. If I were to pick favourites from so many great clues, I’d go for 21/26 and 24
Thank you very much Knut for a lovely Monday treat and to Pierre for the blog.
To confirm that the KEN reference was just a random rambling that popped into my head when I was writing the blog to try to give context to the cd. He is Barbie’s special friend. In what special way he has kept Barbie going has been the subject of much speculation over the years.
I have corrected the arithmetic in 7dn …
On my last visit to the Royal Academy Of Arts In Piccadilly, I was amused to find that the elevators were manufactured by a firm called Schindler.
They’re SCHINDLER’S LIFTS. 🙂
Then after writing the above, I was amazed to find that someone had posted documentary evidence that I’m not making it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76MSNivFyfU
Is this like trainspotting? What the actual flip! 😯
(I’m something of a rabbit hole spelunker like you, Pierre.)
Good decision, crypticsue @9! A real treat, as you say.
As usual, very hard to pick favourites but (some of) my ticks were for SCHINDLER’S LIST, HEIGHTEN, AMBROSIA, HOLBEIN, LIMELIGHT, MIDNIGHT and CHARCOAL, with double ticks for the great surface of SAMOSA and the amusing self-reference https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2018/mar/26/crossword-blog-meet-the-setter-knut ) in TUMBREL.
Many thanks to Knut for a great start to the day and to lucky (as crypticsue would say) Pierre for an entertaining blog.
Pierre – You mention ET in 23d SATED but what about Elliott in the clue for 7d SURFEIT?
I think that’s a good call, Peter Piper.
Does everyone think ‘first Serious Shooting’ being SS and Steven Spielberg’s first letters being SS
is coincidental and not intentionally clued by Knut?
I spent far too much time at 13D trying to work ‘poo’ = ‘motion’ into the parsing. Was this an intentional red herring on Knut’s part, I wonder. Otherwise all went in very smoothly so thanks Knut and Pierre.
Lovely stuff-what a great first movie! You never see the driver.
Pierre, re AMBROSIA:
Other BORISes are available: Becker, Karloff, Pasternak, Spassky, Yeltsin… Who was this Boris Alexander anyway?
I prefer to think of Bobby “Boris” Pickett of “Monster Mash” fame. Or “Boris The Spider” by The Who.
Terrific knotty puzzle with a blog to match. Thanks Knut and Pierre.
And thanks Eileen@12 for the link. Knut loves “…a timeless old Bunthorne”. Me too. Someone posted one of his (Bunthorne’s) clues recently:
“El (3,6,10)”. I found it here, back in 2005. Maybe Knut hasn’t seen it yet:
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/23584
It also contains a clue with this enumeration: “(5,3,2,2,4,4,2,2,5)”. It’s a doozy.
KVa @15 – The SS looks intentional to me. Maybe Knut will come and tell us.
Thanks both. Needed some guesswork right at the end as TUMBREL and Jacques B were both unknowns. A rarity, but I knew the GK elements of the Spielberg theme, though will point out for maybe the fourth time here that ET is the name of the lead character, not the film (in its entirety), if I am permitted to be pedantic on a Monday
Frankie@19
I have to admit that the clue works as a cd (as Pierre says) without any assistance from the SS logic.
As you say, Knut may visit the blog sometime and clarify.
I meant FrankieG@19
Thanks for your blog, dear Pierre, and thanks to those who have commented. I wrote this puzzle about 18months ago and Eimi had originally intended to publish it after Oscars night 2022 but it must’ve fallen victim to events, dear boy…
In the clue for STEPHEN SPIELBERG, Pierre has the parsing completely. I used the word “serious” because presumably young master Spielberg had shot a million films of one form or another before completing DUEL.
Spotter’s badge for Peter Piper at 13 for the Elliott ref.
The silly clue mentioning T(hora) Hird – of whom, like Alan Bennett, I’m a fan – was the base for this puzzle and I decided to include the director of CE3K and some of his works.
Warmest regards to all, Rob/Knut
Good fun crossword. Spent ages trying to work statue into 14A before realising that the clue was more fundamental than that! Doh! Loved the Thora Hird clue and got to it a bit too quickly – showing my age. ?
.
Thanks Knut. I needed several nudges to finish the NE quadrant but I enjoyed this nonetheless. As usual there was GK unknown to me e.g. the definition of TUMBREL, the existence of Thora Hird, the term Cuban heels, and the word MOWGLI. Solve and learn. Top picks were MIDNIGHT and BEOWULF, mainly for their surfaces. Thanks Pierre for the blog.
Really enjoyed that – must note Knut for future reference. Thanks both.
Failed to parse CANAPE – but I’ve clearly not understood the concept of the (apparently outlawed) ‘indirect anagram’. If this is not one then what is?
An indirect anagram, Alphalpha, is where the anagram fodder is not directly given, and you are right – it it generally verboten. But here, it’s ‘cycling’ rather than a complete anagram: APECAN, if you ‘cycle’ the last three letters to the front, gives you your solution. I’ve always understood this to be fair game; but others may have a different viewpoint.
Thank you Knut, I thought I was high and dry on this one until my first long one (Duel) and that then opened things up – but not too much. Some super cluing, especially Thora and Barbie.
Challenging puzzle, but I finished without having to resort to Google. Getting the theme, which I’ve seen before in cryptics but am not expert on, helped tremendously. Thanks to Knut.
Stretching the SS “theme”, there’s the allusion to (Klaus) Barbie in 12d… 😉
…and they featured prominently in the film at 1a 🙂
Belated thanks Pierre@27.